30% on rottentomatoes. That’s way below my threshhold unless it’s at the dollar theater.
Horrible horrible movie.
When the “The End” came up I actually cheered - and others joined me.
The worst thing about BD was that it had a great script. Bad acting, bad cinematography, bad editing, bad scoring, bad art design, bad everything got together to bukake that script.
I would have walked out, but I never walk out of movies unless I’m going to ask for my money back and I’ve only done that once in my life (Bulletproof). At least 3 couples walked out just after the 2 hour mark. Good for them.
You’re right about everything but the script. I mean, come on. I like film noir and understand that part of the genre is a complicated script, but Black Dahlia takes that completely over a cliff, and then compounds the problem by having the protagonist solve the mystery in the film’s final minutes by piecing together a bunch of random, tiny moments and connecting them with huge leaps of logic. A movie like LA Confidential shows how you can have a complicated plot that still makes sense, and can be believably figured out by the characters. It’s also a great example of characters drawn subtly and for the most part deeply, which was another thing that the Black Dahlia script glaringly lacked.
wasn’t it solved? that author who discovered that the real murderer was in fact — ------?
Which author are you talking about? There’s dozens of people who claim to have “solved” the murder but no solution is definitive AFAIK.
Vin Diesel?
The Butler!
Tom Chickk!
The script was terrible. The cinematography is the reason to see the movie.
It ain’t great, but if you liked the book, you’ll at least get some enjoyment out of the film. It really holds together fairly well until that last half-hour.
SPOILERS AHOY!!!
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Thing is, DePalma and company should’ve learned something from Brian Helgeland and Curtis Hanson’s L. A. Confidential–there’s no way to write the whole book into the movie, so don’t try. Cut big parts out of it, see what you get.
The single biggest problem with the film was them trying to be way too damn faithful to the book. In particular, the Lee Blanchard backstory with Kay and Bobby De Witt could’ve been dropped easily, with the character’s motivations tied into other aspects of the story.
I like film noir and understand that part of the genre is a complicated script, but Black Dahlia takes that completely over a cliff, and then compounds the problem by having the protagonist solve the mystery in the film’s final minutes by piecing together a bunch of random, tiny moments and connecting them with huge leaps of logic.
Thank you, that just about sums up what I thought about. It’s not walk out bad, but I was glad when it ended. Looks very nice though.
I finally got a chance to see this. It goes waaaaaaaayyyy long, but it wasn’t too bad, really. It could definitely have done with a little editing. The cinematography and whole atmosphere of the film was pretty awesome though.
This was one of the most disappointing movies I’ve seen in a long time. The story they have is really good, but goes nowhere, the characters seem empty, the murder plot… is laughably bad, and shit… just disappointing.
This was a really good movie.
Agreed. What was mildly passable as an over-long book, it comically pathetic in a two-hours script. Watching this, I felt like William Holden in Sunset Boulevard, which I’ve only seen recently - trapped in a nice looking prison, trying to get out.
No, it really wasn’t. Trust me.
I’d rather trust myself, and I keep telling myself I enjoyed it. Also I didn’t know anything about the movie when I watched it, so I couldn’t even be subconsciously taking some contrarian position. I watched it, I liked it, I looked it up online and discovered once again that people other than me have shitty taste.
Yeah, that’s it.